Archive for the ‘Terms of Use’ Category

Ok, everyone has been hearing about Microsoft Windows 10 upgrade lately. I’ve seen only one report that was written with any thought of looking deeply under the hood of Windows 10. I’ve yet to read others. Being an IT technician, I follow big business and their habits about upgrading operating systems and supporting them. Thus is why I keep up with what Microsoft is up to.

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine on Internet Relay Chat showed me a copy of a recent email he’d gotten about Windows 10. I was rather dumbfounded to say the least and wasn’t sure if it were a hoax or not. After reading it and Microsoft’s own “privacy statement,” I am even more shell shocked. You can read this “privacy statement” in it’s entirety here:

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You’ll be just as shocked as I was. If you think the NSA scandal was bad with your personal information and spying, you haven’t begun to understand government or big business. This “privacy statement” as Microsoft is calling it is ripe for a class action lawsuit. This is nothing more than pure invasion of privacy on the level of if not beyond what the NSA was doing before Edward Snowden released his informative information about what was happening inside the NSA.

Let me list just what they are collecting without their explanation of it. You can go to the above link and find out their definition of the terms I use here under the section : Personal Data We Collect.

Name and contact data

Credentials

Demographic data

Interests and favorites

Payment data

Usage data

Contacts and relationships

Location data

Content

Taken individually or taken as a whole, wouldn’t you think twice before upgrading even if you could turn most of this collection process off? I know I would. Do you think Microsoft is going to do what they say with your personal information? I don’t. I’ll make the wager that Microsoft is going to not only use your personal information but SELL it in order to reap even more money (profit) off their monopolistic ways.

Ok, most of you won’t believe this and probably have already upgraded. All I can say is YOU’LL BE SORRY! Start looking for your junk mail and unk email to fill up beyond capacity and telemarketers to call more than usual. This is only the beginning unless a class action lawsuit is brought against Microsoft. Microsoft will NOT protect your personal data against government agencies unlike Google who has. Microsoft and Uncle Sam are closely tied together at the hip.

For those that are still on Windows 7, stay put till AFTER this gets resolved. Either that or join a growing number of people like myself who are moving away from Windows and to a lesser extent Apple to use open source software (FREE) and the Linux or BSD operating systems. I know. You’ll say it’s harder than Windows or Mac OS X. Yes it can be so take it slow at first if you decide you want to drop kick Microsoft to the curb.

Here’s the upside of moving away from proprietary software: absolutely no cost for the operating system at all, more secure operating system (less virus prone and less spyware prone), faster updates than Microsoft [(first Tuesday of every month) whereas Linux and BSD update shortly after a security issue is found (usually within days not weeks months or years)], and many many more applications than Windows will ever have for you guessed it FREE. The largest upside is that both Linux and BSD operating systems DO NOT collect personal data!

The ball is in your court now. Upgrade or not. Personally, I’ll NEVER look back at Windows again. Even if I do it will NOT be Windows 10 and it will be run in virtual machine NOT my main operating system. I’ve been on Linux (Kubuntu and Fedora Core) for over 8 years now full time. I don’t know it all nor will I ever really know it all. However, I’m happier knowing my system is secure and more stable than Windows (any variant) will ever be.